As most are probably in a similar situation as I am, that is a working professional, not yet established but working to find out a stable model that is time tested yet blended with a taste of your own individualism. And through this, we use career’s and jobs as a way to further harden this process and add additional layers that over time, like sedimentary rocks, will compound themselves into a more complete structure, one capable of withstanding pressures, time, and change.

And yet I find myself asking the question, what makes a company good, and what makes them great? In my travels, I have had the opportunity to work in a variety of different environments and work expectations, and yet I have yet to find something that really captures my attention and says to me, “Oh my Goodness! Why isn’t everyone doing this as this is absolutely brilliant!” I ask this question in light of my recent completion of the David Allen book Getting Things Done, or GTD for short. And in this, Allen brings up a plethora of best practices and things to think about when we address the problem of work, pursuant to working a little as possible, and yet getting the most done at the same time. So it’s not the work as little to get by, but work as little to get ahead model. And in reality and as I start to put some of this into practice, it’s really a slippery slope as you question yourself and what you are doing because it just seems to be WRONG!

How is it that you can feel wrong by not having the feeling that you are hammered every single second of every single day? And yet I find myself starting to get to a pinnacle of organization and process to ensure that everything has it’s place and a place for everything. Organization at least in my previous notion was something that was to be dreaded, because it felt you just move stuff around, but nothing ever gets done. And the common sense things that Allen brings up, really does open your eyes as these simple things can make all the difference and certainly in my perspective has given me the ability to look at work in a whole other way. I truly enjoy the statement that you want to bring up with your boss and that is “I am periodically out of control, as I work to challenge myself and my process, and the way that I look and work to complete things”. Given that is a bit of paraphrasing, but nonetheless you get the point, and that is it is OK to do something that is a bit out there, a bit untested, because at the end of the day you might find a new way to get something done, or you might not and realize that there is just another way not to do things.

You take for granted that organizations are these things that are established and well organized, and those within the organization are well organized; however, I think you have to realize that everyone is in a similar process of learning and a company is just a collected group of individuals similar to yourself. What we consider to be functional, may only be the cover that masks a belief that is nothing more than a belief of how things should be, not what they really are. We should all work to think of things in ways that we haven’t before and challenge ourselves to go beyond our own status quo, for only then will we truly feel alive and be able to take life at all of it’s glory.